“ALL NLEs: The Great Debate” – genuine question

[Trevor Asquerthian]

[Bill Davis] “I can’t imagine there’s any way to concurrently let two LIVE timelines exist each reaching into the same database. “

Well that is what IPEdit has done for quite a few years. It’s very basic but at this (two independent playouts simultaneously, with one able to edit the timeline) it has no peers. That I can find.

[Trevor Asquerthian]

[Tony West] “while you can’t really do what you are wanting to do”
Well I can, but only with IPEdit (which is showing no signs of future development).

[Tony West] “you can in X share a section of the timeline to the EVS while working in that same timeline”

Yep – I can also do that with Avid, PPro, Resolve….

[Tony West] “The export is pretty fast like you said so………..not really losing that much time”

But someone has to stitch the chunks together into a playlist that is playing to air.

And when something happens that means you need to lose time from an earlier (but as yet unaired) portion of the show, it means that whoever is stitching the patches needs to be reliable… plus you could really only risk that with say 5 minutes before the patch aired when you ‘share’ from the NLE… which means you’ve got to edit and review the edit ahead of that…

It’s niche editing, I know. But not that niche.

[Trevor Asquerthian]

[Neil Sadwelkar] “There used to be an app that we used many years ago, called PictureReady, to edit shows in FCP 7 as they were being recorded to disk. I find that it still exists but can’t say if it works inside any NLE.”

Ah the Gallery PictureReady / VirtualVtr combo. Used to use that in tape suites!

Still is only a means of streaming media in, not a means of playing an edit live to air whilst editing the same timeline. Unfortunately.

Thanks for the input though.

[Trevor Asquerthian]

[Walter Soyka] “what using two machines (one for editing, one for playout) with shared storage in an Adobe Premiere Pro team project, Avid bin sharing, or Resolve multiple user workflow”

Ideally they would allow two instances of the app to run on one computer – with different IO destinations.

But I can’t see how any of them will allow one timeline to be edited whilst being played out of a second workstation.

Thanks for the thoughts though

[Joe Marler]

[Trevor Asquerthian] ” I need to be able to play out a timeline whilst I am making edits.”

This is possible in FCPX, see below 60 sec demonstration. However it is designed as a productivity enhancer when editing, not a mechanism to play a timeline directly from the NLE to broadcast while editing the same timeline.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPQwUaUCkHU

While Thomas Grove Carter makes it look very impressive, there are several limitations which rapidly appear. E.g, you can cut the timeline and do a slip edit behind the moving playhead, make that a compound clip and watch it appear — all while playback continues. But you can’t play that new clip or edited portion of the timeline while the main playhead is moving (even with Window>Show In Workspace>Event Viewer enabled) because FCPX only supports a single active playback stream.

In theory within certain limits you could edit a timeline in FCPX while playing direct to broadcast. But in general you don’t want to play from *any* NLE direct to broadcast — with or without concurrent editing.

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[Trevor Asquerthian]

[Joe Marler] “[Trevor Asquerthian] ” I need to be able to play out a timeline whilst I am making edits.”

This is possible in FCPX, see below 60 sec demonstration. “

Thanks Joe but by ‘making edits’ I mean properly making them – as in trimming, inserting, deleting, reviewing, fine tuning, grading, adjusting audio etc. What is shown here is cool, but very limited.

[Joe Marler] “in general you don’t want to play from *any* NLE direct to broadcast — with or without concurrent editing”

Some folks play directly to air from NLEs every day. Some are more reliable than others 😉

[Walter Soyka]

[Trevor Asquerthian] “But I can’t see how any of them will allow one timeline to be edited whilst being played out of a second workstation.”

Why not? Both Adobe team projects and Avid bin sharing allow multiple editors to work on the same project at the same time. (I presume Resolve’s collaboration feature works similarly). You’d edit on one machine on shared storage, then open the sequence for playout from the other machine as a read-only instance.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Trevor Asquerthian]

Currently, I believe, they only allow sequences to be opened as duplicate instances effectively.

eg
1. create a sequence and add 5 minutes of content
2. Load that sequence on 2nd PC and hit play
3. Go to first PC and append another 5 minutes

The 2nd PC will hit black at 5 mins regardless of any saving / checking in / whatever done on first PC

If you stop playback on 2nd PC then, of course, you can ‘update from Interplay’ or re-open the bin and get the changes.

I haven’t used team projects or collaborate on Resolve so would be *very* happy if they did offer sequence updates ‘live’ .

[Joe Marler]

[Trevor Asquerthian] “Some folks play directly to air from NLEs every day. Some are more reliable than others ;-)…”

There is no limit to what people will do, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. I personally would never play back material from any regular NLE — even at a film festival — much less for broadcast. That includes FCPX, Avid, Premiere, Vegas, Edius, Resolve, etc.

In case other readers didn’t catch it, the EVS IPEdit product you’re using is not a traditional NLE. It is a broadcast “playout system” with some editing features: https://evs.com/en/news/evs-introduces-play-while-editing-ipedit

Broadcast playout systems often have ability to reorder playlists, edit head and tail of upcoming clips, etc. It appears IPEdit had more extensive features in this area.

Broadcast playout is a highly specialized area. The product management of any traditional NLE has a list of features to consider for upcoming versions. Each of those new features entails technical risk, development cost, test cost, support cost, and projected payback. I seriously doubt any of the leading NLEs are prioritizing concurrent editing during broadcast playout.

It’s possible you could do your own “science project” and cobble together something using the collaborative editing features of existing NLEs. However they are really not designed or tested for broadcast playout. You’re probably better off going to NAB and making inquiries, since this is a more broadcast-workflow issue than a NLE issue.

There are specialized apps for professional media playback such as DT Videolabs’ Playback Pro:

https://www.dtvideolabs.com/dt-videolabs-playbackpro-professional-video-playback/

For larger film festivals or stadium-size audiences, playback might be two redundant computers, each running specialized playback software, and a production video switcher handling failover. For broadcast, the term is “playout” and it would normally be file-based playout servers such as this: https://360systems.com/pdf/maxx_2420ex.pdf

This new Ross playout server is another example: https://go.rossvideo.com/tria-news-playout-server

Clutch Broadcast PlayOut Server: https://www.clutchautomation.com/clutch-playout.html

A cheaper Mac-based playout server: https://renewedvision.com/provideoserver/

This one is Windows-bases software, but you must add your own I/O cards: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1016995-REG/deyan_automation_systems_aslite_single_channel.html

[Trevor Asquerthian]

Thanks for the reply Joe – some interesting links there. I think you are correct that the big iron NLEs will not bother themselves with this, as they are always a bit scared of live (despite being used for live by lots of folks.).

[Joe Marler] “There is no limit to what people will do, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. I personally would never play back material from any regular NLE — even at a film festival — much less for broadcast.”

Sometimes there is only playing live. If you are doing a :20 sports ‘key moment’ that happened a couple of minutes ago, it’s usually safest to play ‘live’ (actually usually slight delay via an EVS so there is a better handle on the playing to air bit of it), rather than exporting it. Adobe’s ‘feature’ where the audio will cut out is always a treat in those scenarios.

[Joe Marler] “the EVS IPEdit product you’re using is not a traditional NLE. It is a broadcast “playout system” with some editing features: https://evs.com/en/news/evs-introduces-play-while-editing-ipedit
“

It’s very limited, but it is a traditional NLE, in that it can do inserts / overwrites / L cuts / J cuts / cutaways etc. There’s no internal graphics, it’s a single video layer, no internal audio mixing and you are limited to cuts / dissolves / wipes, but the ‘replace’ (think preread) function, together with GPIs, gives interesting options. (e.g. if you have access to an ME of a decent vision mixer you can colour correct, add replay wipes, add chyrons etc). We did all of the 2008 Olympics out of two IPEdits, rather than use the $$$ tape rooms we had been assigned. (Well we used the vision mixers / DVEs and audio mixers via replace, so it didn’t all go to waste).

In another show we were delaying a 2 hour live concert (by 15 mins initially). Adding opener, inserting commercials, cutting chat, fixing mis-cuts etc. With 5.1 and 2.0 simultaneously (i.e. 8 channel output). Fortunately the commercial lengths were a fixed length, so I could just set my timeline timecode to time of air and dead roll it. Then anything I put on the timeline would then air at that time. Scary but very cool. Closest I got to editing something before it aired was about 15 seconds, mostly inserting commercial breaks gained us extra time.

[Joe Marler] ” I seriously doubt any of the leading NLEs are prioritizing concurrent editing during broadcast playout. “

Sadly you are almost certainly correct. Although many shows might benefit from being ‘nearly’ live.